GWSR Lineside

 A  glorious day of bright sunshine with no wind - but not necessarily good for working on a south facing steep embankment! But the four of us set about it with a will and cleared a good section of the lower embankment ready for dropping trees into the cleared space next time. It's difficult work with very tall blackberries embedded in small trees so a combination of chainsaw, hedgecutter and rake. Without the truck a wheelbarrow would be good to carry the gear trackside to the location. The photos don't really show the huge effort we made. Mrs T raised concerns that our drainage ditches are now overgrown again and could cause flooding in winter and our blackberries have deliberately grown under the fence which we have provided and this has cost her money to have the tarmac cleared. So, for the brush cutters, I suggest a good clearance along the whole of the new fence line and then the drainage ditches. It was good to get back into the swing of things after my recent lay-off. ...

 A damp and windy morning as 5 of us (Alex, Paul, Chris, Ian, Lawrence) moved back to the bank at Mrs Townsend's. Restarting from the north end where debris from last week was available for a fire, Alex started the fire going and Paul continued clearing the bottom track ready for next week with the brushcutter. Chris acted as both watch guard and as clearance while Ian and I cleared the next 10m of bramble ready for the large hawthorn tree to be dropped at the top of the bank. The session finished early with everyone soaked (and smoked out) with a stiff breeze blowing.  Next week I suggest we continue working south through the blackthorn and brambles on the bank unless any other urgent stuff comes up. Lawrence Harvey Betton Grange pulling north out of Winchcombe

 Steve Brudnell and I spent another morning removing a couple of dead or deseased trees, this time at Cheltenham Racecourse. No pictures of the one on the bank (0497) but the big overhang on platform 2 was removed after safely removing the CRC platform sign which it would have fallen on. A bit of tidying up to do as the large stumps on both trees proved too much for a couple of the chainsaws  but we need to return anyway to clear one extra tree and a couple of smaller ones on the main platform side. Lawrence Harvey Before After  

  Five of us today. First stop Toddington ex Garden Centre to chip a heap of trimmings for the Friends. Then on to Broadway to continue the clearance of the car park bank.  With four brushcutters working we have made quite good progress along the section with the wire mesh ground reinforcement. Well done everybody. Nick Wright   

Multi team day today, with great results. In the morning, one team, Graham, Paul and Dick tackled tunnel bridge 30 with the wing walls cleared ready for inspection, later this month.   Second team, Lawrence, Alex, Andy and Chris removed the fallen tree on the Malvern side opposite Mrs Townsend's and also removed another large Hawthorn which was dying on the same bank and would fall across the fence.  Andy also created space with the brushcutter for Alex to burn the arisings. In the afternoon we combined and started, for an hour, back on the embankment next to Townsends farm, which is the main clearance objective for Saturday team this winter.  Andy cleared the bottom of the bank ready for a fire the following week while Lawrence started on the blackthorn and Graham worked along the top.  Dick, Chris and Alex worked on moving the rest down the bank.  No pictures but about 10m cleared of blackthorn. What was great was travelling to site in the vans and the mu...

Four of us today on a fine Autumn day. First job was to clear the side walls of Peasebrook Stud underbridge, ready for its inspection, which we did. Driving down the track to the bridge we noticed that there was a fair bit of growth over the signal wires, and as we understand that these may become operational soon, we decided to pre-empt a job request by clearing back the growth over them - well done Jonathan. Otherwise we were back to the car park slope at Broadway, making slow but steady progess along the bank, carefully clearing the area with the mesh ground reinforcing.   Last weeks experiment has proved that we can cut this area with brushcutters, with the cut bramble acting as a protective layer. Several of the brushcutters were playing up and so hopefully our Drainage friends can work their magic on them. We will be back at Broadway next week, after a brief interlude chipping another pile of cut stuff at Toddington first. Nick Wright   

 A team of 8 today with Andy and Alex on the chipper, Paul, Sally and Graham on recovery of cuttings and Steve, Lawrence and Ian on chainsaws. Excellent day today in almost perfect conditions, if not a little warm. Eight of us tackled the cherry trees between the engine shed sidings and the narrow gauge at Toddington. They were lovely trees but sadly were moving down the ash filled bank towards the narrow gauge buildings so they needed to removes. The trees were also leaning towards the buildings so great skill was required by Lawrence and Ian on chainsaws with help from the rest of the team on ropes to ensure the trees fell correctly. It was good to see a few red kites and a young deer in the field opposite the work site. Next week back, we have tunnel bridge 30 to clear, and if we have enough brushcutters and chainsaw it's also back to Townsends embankment. Instructions email out Wednesday as usual.  There will be pictures on the blog but a personal favourite, not showing ei...

F ive of us today on our first visit of the season to what will be our long term home at Broadway.   Whilst it was a bit rainy at times, it was not so bad as to stop us and we have made a start at the Station end of the car park bank, working southwards. We have thus cleared the section from the Bridge (1) to the start of the area with the ground stabilization mesh.  The cut bramble has been left to mulch down and any tree saplings have been cut down and chipped As an experiment, David made a start clearing on the meshed area and we have found that there is so much bramble (approx 6' high) that when this is cut down with a mulching blade on the brushcutter, it leaves enough derbris such that the blade is kept away from the mesh.  We shall hopefully continue this next week, as well as popping down to the Peasebrook Bridge to give it a tidy prior to its inspection. Thanks everyone. Nick Wright